Seaside Hotel Research Articles

Seasonal hotel jobs: an occupation and a way of life

Research for the present study was undertaken in the summer of 1995. This paper seeks to identify whether Salaman's notion of ‘occupational communities’ exists in a sample of six British seasonal seaside hotels, a relatively unexplored sector of the hotel industry. Briefly, occupational communities have as their major focus the job itself and they are also characterised by a fusing of work and leisure activities. Interviews with 30 hotel workers indicate that seasonal, and particularly live-in workers, tend to form distinct ‘occupational communities’. These communities, however, are different to ‘traditional’ occupational communities in a number of respects. Most importantly, instead of the job itself being the focus for community formation, job importance is replaced by work situations characterised by hedonism and close social bonding. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Women Behaving Badly: Dahl's Witches Meet the Women of the Eighties

Before investigating the issue of misogyny in Dahl's book and Roeg's film, it will be useful to look at some of the more general differences between both texts. Roeg's film is based upon Dahl's basic narrative: A child is orphaned, taken by his grandmother to a seaside hotel, where he encounters a coven of witches, is transformed into a mouse, and finally, after defeating these witches, returns home with his grand-

Dimensionality of the Job Diagnostic Survey Among Distinct Subgroups of Seasonal Hotel Workers

This study assessed the dimensionality of Hackman and Oldham's (1974) Job Diagnostic Survey amongst workers in six English seasonal seaside hotels. Overall results of correlation and reliability coefficients for the present samples were comparable with those of Hackman and Oldham, and supported the theoretical cohesiveness of the item scales. In addition, all of the samples apart from the SO group showed a basic, underlying seven-factor structure. In general, the factor structure was much stronger for workers who aspired to year-round, rather than to seasonal, work. It also appeared to be stronger for workers who lived away from hotel premises. This might be expected, because workers in these groups corresponded most closely to the work patterns of workers in other industries offering full-time, non- seasonal employment.

An investigation of ‘core job dimensions’ amongst seasonal seaside hotel workers

The following study was undertaken in an English seasonal seaside hotel, and, using the Job Diagnostic Survey, 1974), questioned departmental managers and operative workers about their jobs in terms of ‘core job dimensions’. Operative hotel workers' scores were compared to departmental managers' scores for the same jobs. Departmental and operative worker mean scores were compared to those observed by others. Two important findings emerged. The first challenges the value of extensive staff training in seasonal seaside hotels, and the second challenges the notion that a ‘hands on, being there’ style of hotel management is ineffective, in terms of creating a culture which may engender job satisfaction amongst hotel workers.

Two Styles of Hotel Manager, Two Styles of Worker

Evidence suggests that the hotel sector has high levels of labour turnover, especially in seaside resorts. To help explain this, at least in part, management styles and their effect on hotel workers′ perceptions of jobs was investigated. The study was undertaken in five seasonal seaside hotels from April to October 1992. All had between 30‐65 bedrooms. Interviews with managers revealed two supervisory styles; “co‐ordinative” whereby for most of the time managers did not work alongside their staff, and “hands‐on”, whereby for most of the time they did. Information about hotel jobs was elicited from managers and staff using Hackman and Oldham′s (1974) job diagnostic survey. This standard questionnaire views jobs as a composite of several “core job dimensions”, each having a possible score of 1 to 7 depending on its perceived degree of presence within a job. It was hypothesized that “hands‐on” managers would score jobs similarly to their workers and that “co‐ordinative” managers would not. Also, that workers experiencing “hands‐on” supervision would score “core job dimensions” higher than their “co‐ordinative” counterparts. The former notion was supported by the results, the latter found partial support. The results indicate that management styles may be important in motivating workers.

Radicalism & Reform: The Vrooman Family and American Social Thought, 1837-1937 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS59 dynamic of the pair, who reminds one of James's Verena Tarrant in her vivacity, stage presence, and independence of spirit, won thousands of converts to the abolitionist cause on her New England tour with Sarah in 1837. Although rigorous logic and personal, acute observation determined the sisters' courageous stand against slavery, they displayed an unconventional anger about the failures and the sterile apathy of their society; they were, as the subtitle suggests, rebels, though they always remained southern ladies in the best sense of that rather abused term. To explain how and why they pursued so lonely and unorthodox a course is hardly an easy task, for their personalities defy facile judgments. Angelina married the great abolitionist and organizer Theodore Weld, but she found it very difficult to adjust to the mindless domesticity of the ordinary housewife. Sarah, frustrated in her spinsterhood by the restrictions of career that nineteenth-century society imposed, tried in vain to find satisfaction in helping to raise "dear Theodore's children," but Angelina understandably resented her sister's persistent and devious efforts to dominate her household. Nor was the brilliant Weld a man of simple feelings and commonplace ideas, but rather, like his wife and sister-in-law, he spent his life searching for a spiritual fulfillment that constantly eluded him. After the trio's disillusionment with evangelicalism, they wandered almost aimlessly among various kinds of religious beliefs. Also, they gradually withdrew from antislavery labors after the dismal collapse of evangelical abolitionism in 1840, a retreat that no historian has yet adequately explained. While their contributions to the causes for which they fought—antislavery, educational reform, communitarianism, religious experimentation , and feminine equality—were great, something mysterious and opaque shrouds their motivations and their turmoil of soul. Mrs. Lemer, the first author to portray their careers in a full-length biography since Catherine Beecher published her account in 1885, has written a compelling, frequently eloquent book. The opening chapters are superbly written, especially the passages describing with dramatic power Sarah's ordeal in nursing her dying father at a remote seaside hotel. The biographer is particularly skillful in handling the often subtle interplay between the main characters, and she is sympathetic, while remaining objective, about the sisters' struggles between heart and mind over their roles as women seeking wider vocational and spiritual horizons in an age that discouraged both kinds of adventure. Nevertheless, this work fails to answer some of the basic questions facing antislavery scholars. Relying upon the outworn interpretations of Gilbert Barnes and other predecessors, Mrs. Lemer offers us nothing new about the antislavery cause nor about the Weld-Grimké role in it. (It should be added, however, that Weld's character is better delineated herein than in Benjamin Thomas' sketchy biography.) The author misses too many opportunities to probe the Grimkés' post-exile relations with their southern kinfoik, a failure that only further research in southern archives could resolve. Nor does she explore in sufficient depth their spiritual pilgrimage away from Christian orthodoxy, a course pursued by a rather sizable number of other reform leaders of that era. Moreover, there are signs of hasty production in the editing, selection of illustrations, and in the occasional lapses of style. Mrs. Lemer, however, writes with an artistry all to rare in academic circles, and this book fully merits wide circulation among general readers, though scholars will find it somewhat deficient in original thought about the larger questions which the Grimkés' somber lives encompassed. Bertram Wyatt-Brown Case Western Reserve University Radicalism

NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Spring Meetings of National Societies: The Society for Pediatric Research will hold its annual meeting in Atlantic City on May 3 and 4, 1968. The headquarters for this meeting will be the Seaside Hotel. Tile plenary sessions will be in the Steel Pier. The meeting is open to all interested physicians. Registration may be accomplished at the Seaside Hotel at the time of the meeting. This meeting will be preceded by that of the American Pediatric Society on May 1 and 2 at the same location.

CORRECTION

The date of the annual scientific meeting of the Association for Ambulatory Pediatric Services (Pediatrics, 39:148, 1967) has been changed to April 26, 1967, at the Seaside Hotel in Atlantic City.

Fifth Annual Convention of the Catholic Economic Association Seaside hotel, Atlantic city, New Jersey, January 25, 1947

Fifth Annual Convention of the Catholic Economic Association Seaside hotel, Atlantic city, New Jersey, January 25, 1947